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2022 reading retrospective: summa cum laude
I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.
For structure, I threw together these categories:
Nonfiction
Fear and Fungi
Mystery
Romance
summa cum laude
This post is about my summa cum laude picks!
(Summa cum laude means "with highest honor," in case anyone is unfamiliar. Latin. Can't escape it.)
Here are the ones that I've already written about but that deserve to be on this here summa cum laude list:
Every single book on my mystery list (yep!)
Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) (horror)
The Heroine's Journey (Gail Carriger) (nonfiction)
The Duke Who Didn't (Courtney Milan) and The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (Cat Sebastian) (capital-R genre Romance)
Here are the ones that are AMAZING and don't fit in those other categories:
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers
Nettle and Bone, T Kingfisher
the Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey
The Mountain the Sea, Ray Nayler
Spoilers & opinions below the jump
SCI FI: The Galaxy and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers) is the last(?) installment in her Wayfarers series, which started with the fantastic Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, continued through the very different A Closed and Common Orbit, and then to the Record of a Spaceborn Few. In my opinion, The Galaxy and the Ground Within is something of a return to what I loved about Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's a bottle episode and there's a cast of characters (not a single human in the bunch) who basically explore their similarities and differences. I really, really liked this one. There was some really neat worldbuilding, and I felt like there was some good work with theme and identity as well. Also, I can't talk about Chambers's writing without gushing about how her aliens feel really alien--you really get the bio vibe, they don't just feel like re-skinned humans.
FANTASY: Nettle and Bone (T Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon). This one was very gripping. Vernon can be very grim when she wants to be, but the grimness is in the world more than the story, if that makes sense? So the story itself has a satisfying ending, but some of the--okay so this one has big content notes for sexism, abuse, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, all that. It's really well done, but the themes are so so present.
Also the magic is very evocative and... numinous? Which is to say, not hard magic at all, but things Feel right in a "rooted in folklore" way while still being original in the actual mix. It's such good stuff. This book has it all; it's one of the ones I preordered as a hard copy because I was so, so excited about it, and I'm very pleased with my purchase.
Dramatic sci-fi: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. This book is insanely good, it's gripping, it's disturbing. I wrote about it already so I'll just drop a link.
Near Sci-fi: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor. I also wrote about this one. I finished it a while ago, and I'm still thinking about it and digesting it. Link here.
In conclusion, that's 13 excellent books that I strongly recommend! Here's to 2023!
If you didn't see things were done right, it'd get done badly, and watching the resulting inefficiency was like being poked in a sore tooth. It galled her.
Sweet cheese and crackers. I'm rereading T Kingfisher's Nine Goblins and this line is really speaking to me.
T. Kingfisher's romantic subplot dynamics are almost always "middle aged practical woman with a major failed relationship in her past meets buff polite guilt-riddled hunk of a man", and ya know what I respect that
T. Kingfisher's work has some of the most creative and clever uses of magic in the game, you never know what to except going in besides the assurance that you'll have a good time.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is no exception, Mona and her gang of (often literally!) sweet friends were so endearing and the story was an absolute joy to lose myself in. Thank you @tkingfisher 🍰✨
Just a lil rant about my newest beloved fantasy author
Something I love so, so much about T Kingfisher's (@tkingfisher) work is how she portrays the mundane as something so beautiful and wonderful. The majority of her protagonists are all quite regular people, with regular lives, regular hobbies, and regular bodies. And how despite that, all her characters are so interesting, so lovable, and so deeply and utterly human.
Its amazing seeing a series where multiple female romantic leads are plus sized, and there is a mix of both body positivity and body neutrality. Because like yeah, they are gorgeous. But also, at the end of the day bodies are just bodies. A bit in Paladin's Faith got me thinking about this, where the male lead asks about the female lead's stretchmarks, and its very much treated as just a normal thing that she has as a woman, not detracting from her beauty, not adding to it. They just are.
And don't get me started about how nearly all of her male romantic leads, who are for the most part, big, strong, sword-wielding paladins, have knowledge of some form of textile craft, and how it doesn't detract from their masculinity at all. And instead it is something that would actually be very useful for a soldier to know.
Tldr if anybody else is obsessed with T Kingfisher's work as much as I am please let me know so that my long suffering reading friend can have a break from it.
Marguerite Florian from Paladin's Faith by T Kingfisher
I hadn't thought about that, but you make such a great point! The books do such a great job of just normalising trauma and mental health problems! Like its very much treated in a way of accepting their responses to trauma, but also reigning them in when they go a lil too far. Like, accepting that doing a whole bunch of drills will make them feel safe and helps them regulate emotions, but also knowing that letting them overwork themselves is damaging.
On another note as well, I think its great how the books also show the negotiations that go into a relationship with a traumatised person. Like for example, Stephen respecting Grace's boundaries in terms of sex, and Piper being chill about not sleeping in the same bed as Galen cause night terrors. I think it demonstrates how trauma changes people, and how you have to adjust your relationships because of that. And even if you find 'the right one', it doesn't solve your problems because a lot of trauma will be with you for life. Love me some t4t (trauma 4 trauma) relationships haha.
Just a lil rant about my newest beloved fantasy author
Something I love so, so much about T Kingfisher's (@tkingfisher) work is how she portrays the mundane as something so beautiful and wonderful. The majority of her protagonists are all quite regular people, with regular lives, regular hobbies, and regular bodies. And how despite that, all her characters are so interesting, so lovable, and so deeply and utterly human.
Its amazing seeing a series where multiple female romantic leads are plus sized, and there is a mix of both body positivity and body neutrality. Because like yeah, they are gorgeous. But also, at the end of the day bodies are just bodies. A bit in Paladin's Faith got me thinking about this, where the male lead asks about the female lead's stretchmarks, and its very much treated as just a normal thing that she has as a woman, not detracting from her beauty, not adding to it. They just are.
And don't get me started about how nearly all of her male romantic leads, who are for the most part, big, strong, sword-wielding paladins, have knowledge of some form of textile craft, and how it doesn't detract from their masculinity at all. And instead it is something that would actually be very useful for a soldier to know.
Tldr if anybody else is obsessed with T Kingfisher's work as much as I am please let me know so that my long suffering reading friend can have a break from it.
And even though all her protagonists are a bit different and odd, the books don't go in for the 'not like other girls' line. Currently 1/3 of the way through The Raven and the Reindeer, and found this quote:
“I don’t like the other girls,” said Gerta, scowling. “Besides, I’m not like them.” (Kay had told her once that she wasn’t much like other girls. It was one of the phrases that she held very close, tucked up in the space beneath her breastbone.) “In this very town,” said her grandmother, “there are at least a dozen girls standing at windows right this very minute saying the exact same thing.” She shook out her knitting. Gerta scowled harder. “I did the same thing when I was your age,” said her grandmother. “I daresay I wasn’t like other girls harder than anyone else ever was. I was so unlike other girls that I wasn’t even like myself, except on Sundays.”
Instead there is a lot of women supporting women. In the Seventh Bride, even though they are in a situation where they could theoretically be pitted against each other (what with the whole multiple wives thing), but instead they recognise that the real problem is the man keeping them captive. Even Ingith (spelling may be wrong, listened to the audiobook) is treated with a lot of nuance, despite being on the evil guys side (in a way) for a good portion of the book.
Just a lil rant about my newest beloved fantasy author
Something I love so, so much about T Kingfisher's (@tkingfisher) work is how she portrays the mundane as something so beautiful and wonderful. The majority of her protagonists are all quite regular people, with regular lives, regular hobbies, and regular bodies. And how despite that, all her characters are so interesting, so lovable, and so deeply and utterly human.
Its amazing seeing a series where multiple female romantic leads are plus sized, and there is a mix of both body positivity and body neutrality. Because like yeah, they are gorgeous. But also, at the end of the day bodies are just bodies. A bit in Paladin's Faith got me thinking about this, where the male lead asks about the female lead's stretchmarks, and its very much treated as just a normal thing that she has as a woman, not detracting from her beauty, not adding to it. They just are.
And don't get me started about how nearly all of her male romantic leads, who are for the most part, big, strong, sword-wielding paladins, have knowledge of some form of textile craft, and how it doesn't detract from their masculinity at all. And instead it is something that would actually be very useful for a soldier to know.
Tldr if anybody else is obsessed with T Kingfisher's work as much as I am please let me know so that my long suffering reading friend can have a break from it.
Marguerite Florian from Paladin's Faith by T Kingfisher
Most relatable part of any book ever for me (an archaeologist who has suffered through two theses) is this quote from A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher:
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was all so ridiculous. Gran Mae thought she could get me about my weight? I’d come out of academia. If she wanted to tear me apart, she should have commented on my doctoral thesis.
Like damn if I don't feel that. With how many hours I've spent in the lab despairing, thats the way you get to me. Fuck weight, don't you dare attack my child. But also, please never look at it ever and never mention it to me.
The spirit was willing, but the spongiform erectile tissue was weak.
Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher
Absolutely tragic that buying a hardcopy of Paladin's Faith in my country costs nearly $100...
characters whose philosophy is “if i cannot be wanted, i will be needed and if i cannot be needed, let me be used until there’s nothing left of me.” thank you for everyone’s attention. falls off stage and dies
i finished reading ‘what moves the dead’ by t.kingfisher and the image of the hare watching from the side of the glowing lake was so unsettling i had to draw it :)
T Kingfisher books are like "Here's an average woman who is very relatable. She's going to experience The Horrors. There is at least one person who will experience The Horrors alongside her, as a treat. The Horrors change her as a person and also occasionally make her have a complete mental breakdown. Sometimes she goes to a coffee shop."
The Saga of Bob: Endgame (hopefully)
This one was awhile coming. Partly I was afraid that if I posted it, the tumor would come back the next day, and partly I had some complications that took awhile to iron out. But here we are, at long last, sans Bob.
You can learn all about how I had cancer in Part One or hit the prior episode at Part Seven.
What is with doctors and painkillers?! Though to her credit, she was like “I am so sorry you’re in pain! Let me write a new prescription!”
(Still not sure if it’s PTSD.)
That last bit was the really scary one. (It was, uh, pretty bad. Never been bedridden before. Don’t recommend it.)
Shout out to Doctor Pinkeye who had it sorted in two business days. Also, when I first reported my symptoms, she said “You never complain about anything. If you say something’s wrong, it is.” She’s a doctor in a million.
Lack of cortisol can cause problems in about twenty different ways, including dangerous levels of potassium and blowing your electrolytes all to hell. It’s actually kinda interesting, in a “wow, look at all the fascinating ways I could keel over!” way.
Honestly, after two months of slowly crashing cortisol levels, complaining about radiation would have felt like complaining over a hangnail. It was boring and I moisturized a lot, the end.
Also there are some quite nice MedicAlert bracelets on Etsy.
And here is hoping I never have to make another one of these!
she was such a small, inoffensive toad and such a small, inoffensive human
World of the White Rat (collapses and dies) (full image undercut)
